Third edition of Honouring Our Babies Safer Infant Sleep toolkit resource designed for health-care providers

24/02/2023

Did you know? Sudden, unexpected infant death during sleep is one of the leading causes of postnatal death among infants under one year of age in Canada.

PSBC, FNHA and partners have collaborated to share their wisdom in the third edition of the Honouring Our Babies: Safer Sleep Toolkit 2023 for babies 0-12 months of age, an update from the Honouring Our Babies: Safe Sleep Cards: Facilitator Guide 2017.

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What's new in the third edition? The toolikit presents up-to-date, evidence-based information for health-care providers. The messaging and design has been updated to promote and align with the Honouring Indigenous Women's and Families Pregnancy Journeys, with inclusion of the 4 R's of Cross-Cultural Dialogue: Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity and Responsibility; and the 6 Key Principles to providing Culturally Safe, Humble, Trauma-Informed perinatal care: Cultural Safety and Cultural Humility, Self-Determination, Trust Through Relationship, Respect, Anti-Indigenous Racism, Strength and Resilience-Based Practice.

While there is no one sleep practice that completely eliminates the risk of sudden, unexpected infant death during sleep, there are recommendations that health-care providers can share with families/caregivers to help support choosing safer infant sleep positions, environments, surfaces and protective factors.

Conversations about infant sleep are encouraged to occur using a harm-reduction approach that is person and family centred, trauma informed and culturally safe to reduce risk of harm and promote evidence-informed safer sleep practices.

All providers play an important role. Repeated safer sleep conversations during the preconception, pregnancy and postpartum periods can help health-care providers support families in making informed choices regarding their infant's sleep practices.
Breast/chest feeding is a protective factor for sudden, unexpected infant death during sleep regardless of sleep arrangement.
Routine swaddling is not recommended for healthy term infants due to the increased association with a higher risk of sudden, unexpected infant death during sleep.

Call to action for health-care providers

To help support your conversations with parents and caregivers use the toolkit in combination with:

PSBC's Safer Infant Sleep: Practice Resource for Health-care Providers
The provincial companion parent resource: Safer Sleep for my Baby
PSBC's Honouring Indigenous Women's and Families' Pregnancy Journeys Practice Resource

Register to join the webinar and learn more: Honouring Our Babies: Safer Sleep Toolkit

Date: March 16, 2023

Time: Noon to 1 p.m.

The toolkit will be available online here following the webinar. Use the toolkit throughout the perinatal period to educate parents and caregivers about infant sleep practices and normal infant sleep biology.

If you have any questions about the new resource, please contact Perinatal Services BC at psbc@phsa.ca